Ride to St. George

My father was diagnosed with Melanoma Skin cancer several years back. After several surgeries to remove some, a year of interferon treatment, and recently remission he is doing well. The year after he completed his interferon my dad and brothers did a Ride to St. George on their bicycles. They raised money for the Huntsman Cancer Institute and were even featured in some local newspapers during the ride. Since then they have made it an effort to ride each year. So this year I had the bright idea to join them. A little background about my family and riding bikes. My dad has been into the sport for years pretty much for as long as I can remember. In the last several years my brother Tony took a huge interest in the sport and even works at the Draper Canyon Bicycle shop. He intern got his girlfriend Karen into it and even JJ starting riding. So last ride to St. George included the whole gang. Several weeks ago I decided to start getting back into serious shape and purchased a membership to twenty four hour fitness. I made a deep commitment to workout there at least four days a week. Tony and Karen (his girlfriend) came down the other night and took me to dinner. As the conversation went from work, to the house, and then to the St. George bike ride Tony jokingly said you should ride with us. Jokingly because I am 1. Out of Shape 2. Don't own a road bike and haven't really ridden with them 3. Have never really shown interest in torturing my body for the sum of some 300 miles. (Three full days on a bike). Lying in bed that night I had this crazy idea that hey, what the heck I should do it. I mean I am not going to get any younger, and what a fun thing for the family to do.

Ride to St. George May 22-24th

So in order to prepare for this ride in just over two months I have been hitting the gym and my dear new friend the stationary bike. The hardest part so far has been my sore butt due to it not being used to a bike seat (oh and they aren't very comfortable). I have been making a good effort to ride each day for forty minutes and will slowly start increasing that. I got my mountain bike all tuned up and am going to start riding that outside. HOORAY. Tomorrow I am going to attempt to ride my bike to work. The 10.1 mile ride from south provo to north orem (yes I clocked it) just might kill me but at the end of work I have to ride back home. So happy riding and best of luck to me.